Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides size limits

Documents, spreadsheets, and presentations you create, as well as files that you upload, have some limits built in. For instance, files you create or upload that are larger than 5 TB can't be viewed within Google Drive. There are also limits, specific to file type, listed below.

Size limits

Documents: 1,024,000 characters, regardless of the number of pages or font size. Uploaded document files that are converted to the Google Docs format can’t be larger than 50 MB. If you're using an older version of Drive, you can't convert document files that are larger than 10 MB.

Spreadsheets: 2 million cells. If you don't see a green checkmark at the bottom of your spreadsheet, it is using the old version of Sheets and there are different limits, listed in the expandable section below.

Spreadsheets also have overall storage limits. Some spreadsheets may reach these before hitting the 400,000 cell limit, particularly when individual cells have large amounts of text. In such cases, the spreadsheet will go into read-only mode to prevent data loss.

Google forms size limits

These size limits also impact the spreadsheets that collect form responses (for example, if you send a survey). To determine the number of responses that a form can handle, take the number of questions in your form and the number of cells containing other data into account.

Complex Calculations

Google spreadsheets also have complexity limits. Every time a cell is updated, any cell that references it will also be recalculated. If formulas become too complex or take too long to calculate, the spreadsheet will timeout during calculation.

Formulas that increase the complexity of a spreadsheet include:

VLOOKUP, QUERY, SUMIF, and many similar formulas that take a large range of cells as input.

Volatile formulas (e.g., NOW, RAND, OFFSET, INDIRECT) are recalculated every time the spreadsheet is modified. If there are a large number of formulas that depend on cells with volatile formulas, they will be re-calculated on each edit, which may slow down a spreadsheet.

Approaching complexity thresholds

If a spreadsheet takes several seconds to finish calculating, a warning message will appear at the top of the screen. This warning means that formulas may start to display errors or take a significantly long time to calculate if complexity in the spreadsheet is increased. To remove this warning, reduce complexity in the spreadsheet using the tips listed below.

Exceeding complexity thresholds

If a spreadsheet exceeds complexity thresholds, an error message will be shown at the top of your screen. Cells that haven't finished calculating after several seconds will be annotated with errors; however, these cells will continue to calculate in the background until they update with correct values. These calculations may take up to several minutes, depending on the size of the spreadsheet.

Note that every time a cell is updated, all cells dependent on that cell are recalculated. This means that changes to a single cell could cause the entire spreadsheet to recalculate. In some cases, this could take up to several minutes. To avoid exceeding complexity thresholds, go back and modify recent updates to the spreadsheet, following the tips below to reduce complexity.

Tips & Tricks

Try breaking up a large spreadsheet into multiple smaller spreadsheets.

Minimize the number of complex formulas. See the list above for examples of functions that increase complexity.

After getting data points through any complex formula, try to copy-and-paste them as "values only."

Select the values and copy them.

Go to the Edit menu.

Point your mouse to "Paste special."

Select "Paste values only."

Minimize the number of cells that depend on:

A large number of other cells.

Cells with complex formulas.

Cells that are changed frequently.

Presentations: Presentations created in Google Slides can be up to 100 MB. Uploaded presentation files that are converted to Google Slides can also be up to 100 MB.

Drawings: We’ve never seen anyone make a drawing that was too big (but that’s not a dare).

Other files: Files that you upload but don’t convert to a Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides format can be up to 5 TB each.

Across Google Drive, Gmail, and Google+ Photos, every user is given 15 GB of free storage space, and can purchase additional storage as well.

Reducing file size

The best way to reduce file size and save disk space is by compressing images in your document. When compressing images, the amount of detail in the image and image dimensions may decrease. There are a number of free and paid tools for easy image optimization and compression available for the general public online.

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Matt is a Docs & Drive expert and author of this help page. Leave him feedback below about the page.